Holding onto my hat

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Inside, Outside, Upside Down!

The
absence of an independent electoral commission is inconsistent with Singapore’s
claim to be a democratic nation.

Norfolk, England

On 11 May 1963,
an English gentleman by the name of Frank Adler, somehow managed to gain access
into Markham Royal Air Force Station in the English county of Norfolk. While
within the boundaries of the Station, he obstructed a member of Her Majesty's
forces and was promptly arrested.

According to the
UK Official Secrets Act 1920, the Markham Royal Air Force Station was a
prohibited place and it was an offence for anyone to obstruct a member of Her
Majesty's forces while ‘in the vicinity of any prohibited place’.

Thinking he was
clever, Mr Adler argued before the Court that as he was actually in the
prohibited place, he could not be said to be "in the vicinity" of the
prohibited place.

The learned
judge was not going to let Mr Adler get away with such a ridiculous
argument. Mr Adler was found guilty of
the offence.

The judge
explained that the words "in the vicinity of" should be interpreted
to mean on or near the prohibited place.
If the Court was confined to only the literal meaning of the words, it
would have produced absurdity - as someone obstructing a member of Her
Majesty's forces near the Station would be committing an offence, whilst
someone doing the same thing inside the Station would not.

Mr Adler's case[1]
is well-known to law students as being a classic example of the courts applying
what lawyers call the "Golden Rule" for statutory interpretation.
Under the Golden Rule, where a literal interpretation of a wording gives an
absurd result, which Parliament could not have intended, the judge can
substitute a reasonable meaning in the light of the statute as a whole.

Cheng San,
Singapore

2 January 1997
was Polling Day in Singapore. On that
day, top PAP guns walked into and stood inside a Cheng San GRC polling station
while people were lining up to cast their votes. They were Prime Minister Mr
Goh Chok Tong, Deputy Prime Minister Dr Tony Tan and Deputy Prime Minister
Brigadier-General (NS) Lee Hsien Loong, none of whom were candidates for Cheng
San GRC.

At that time,
Cheng San GRC was being hotly contested by The Workers' Party. As to the extent
to which citizens at Cheng San GRC polling station were influenced to change
their votes upon seeing high-ranking PAP leaders congregating there, we will
never know.

PAP won Cheng
San GRC by a narrow margin of 54.8% to 45.2%.

After the 1997
General Election, the Workers' Party lodged a complaint to the police that Mr
Goh Chok Tong, Dr Tony Tan and Brigadier-General (NS) Lee Hsien Loong had been
inside a Cheng San GRC polling station on Polling Day. The Workers' Party cited two sections of the
Parliamentary Elections Act:

Section 82(1)(d):

"No person shall wait outside any polling station on polling
day, except for the purpose of gaining entry to the polling station to cast his
vote".

Section 82(1)(e):

"No person shall loiter in any street or public place within a
radius of 200 metres of any polling station on polling day."

However, the
Attorney-General stated that the PAP leaders had not broken the law.

Pointing to the
use of the word “outside” in Section 82(1)(d), the Attorney-General explained[2]:

“Plainly, persons found
waiting inside the polling stations do not come within the ambit of this
section. …. Only those who wait outside the polling station commit an offence
under this section unless they are waiting to enter the polling station to cast
their votes.”

As for Section
82(1)(e), the Attorney-General pointed to the use of the word “within” and
explained[3]:

“The relevant question is
whether any person who is inside a polling station can be said to be
"within a radius of 200 metres of any polling station". … Plainly, a
person inside a polling station cannot be said to be within a radius of 200
metres of a polling station.”

All these
explanations of the English prepositions “in”, “within”, “inside”, “outside” –
is making my head go terbalik[4]!

I need to go
back to reading nursery books to refresh my understanding of “inside” and
“outside”. (By the way, a very good nursery book which explains the meanings of
these words is the children’s classic "Inside,
Outside, Upside Down" by Stan & Jan Berenstain. I used to read
that book to my children when they were toddlers.)

If Singapore had
an independent election commission overseeing the election procedures, the
Workers’ Party would have been able to lodge their complaint to such a body,
instead of lodging their complaint to the police as they did.

Unfortunately,
Singapore does not have an independent election commission.

In 2011, UN
member countries called on Singapore to establish bodies such as a human rights
institution and an independent electoral commission. The Singapore Government
rejected the UN calls, arguing that such bodies were not necessary. The Singapore
Government said:

“Elections in Singapore
have always been conducted fairly. The electoral system and its procedures are
clearly spelt out in Singapore law which applies to all political participants,
regardless of affiliation. The Singapore Elections Department, staffed by civil
servants, adheres to the Parliamentary Elections Act and conducts elections in
a fair and transparent manner. During the conduct of elections, there are equal
opportunities for all political participants to observe and monitor voting
operations. The result is an electoral system of integrity that has enjoyed
high public trust and served Singapore well." [5]

The Singapore
Government’s official explanation side-steps the actual problems of not having
an independent electoral commission.

Notably, we have
no safeguards against gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is when electoral boundaries
are drawn so as to manipulate vote percentages to benefit the political
interests of an incumbent government. Gerrymandering undermines the integrity
of the electoral process. Hence, it is
crucial to have an independent body to oversee the process of boundary
delimiting.

At every general
election in Singapore, boundaries have been drawn and re-drawn; constituencies
have come and gone. The reasons for
making those changes have never been satisfactorily explained to the public.

The Elections Department being under the
purview of the Prime Minister’s Office, it is a hopelessly constrained
agency. We need an independent electoral
commission to safeguard the integrity of the process of choosing our national
leaders, and more importantly, to give citizens confidence in the legitimacy
and fairness of the result.

The lack of an
independent electoral commission is a glaring gap in Singapore’s electoral
system. The Singapore Government’s
official explanation for denying its citizens the benefit of an independent
election commission, is inadequate and unconvincing.

Up to now, the
ruling party has had to continually fend off persistent criticisms that it has created
an un-level political playing field in order to preserve its political
incumbency. However, when the PAP-led Government sets up an independent
electoral commission, I am sure that PAP critics will have a lot less to
complain about.

But the time when
it will be of greatest significance to the PAP, is on the day when the PAP
becomes an opposition party. When that day comes, I have no doubt PAP would
then be very glad for the existence of the independent election commission they
had established while they had been the ruling party.

About Me

Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss is a practising lawyer who earned her law degree in the United Kingdom. She also holds a Masters Degree in Corporate & Commercial Law from the London School of Economics & Political Science and was called to the English Bar in 1986.
Jeannette is happily married and a mother of four children.
She challenged the incumbent at Mountbatten SMC in Singapore's 2011 General Elections and garnered 41.38% of the votes cast.